If given the opportunity, would you change any of Scream 4’s storylines? EW spoke with Wes Craven, who was kind enough to let the magazine in on some interesting ideas that didn’t make the final cut. When news of a Scream 4 first surfaced, so did a storyline involving Dewey and Gale having a baby. “It [the script] evolved a lot,” said Craven. “They had a kid in the first couple of drafts. Then we just decided that was gonna make things impossible shooting and there really wasn’t a thing for the kid to be doing. Courteney was always showing up at crime scenes with a baby. This is not gonna work!”

And if you thought that story could only exist in a Stab film, Williamson initially pitched an opening sequence involving Neve Campbell’s character going head-to-head with Ghostface and being left for dead! “Then there was a two-year gap while she recovered,” explains Craven. “Bob [Weinstein] felt that would kind of slow the pace of the story and thought it would maybe be better to go with young characters.”

Are you happy these ideas didn’t make the final version of Scream 4?

Horror fans: Support your genre! Head to theaters and check out Scream 4!

59 Responses
to “ Slashed Scream 4 Storylines ”

I’m glad they got rid of a baby….I wouldve been concerned about the baby and it wouldve been too much. Neve being left for dead wouldnt make sense…You saw her in SCREAM4 run across the street and take on ghostface to try and save that girl. She’s too badass and SCREAM4 proved it. Her death better be EPIC if it were to ever happen.

All that aside I’d say killing Kirby was the biggest mistake SCREAM4 made as she really was the only new cast member that I cared about. Jill was cool, but, Kirby would’ve been a nice fit for SCREAM 5. Oh well….I do love the replay value of the movie although I will admit with another poster that Dewey spent most of that film in his damn car. LOL. I loved it!!!!

I am glad those ideas got cut! Sidney’s role was perfect in this film, and I was already terrified enough when she was stabbed twice! I’ve seen this twice and I honestly think it was just fine! (I’m a little nit-picky about the “climax” with it all taking place at Kirby’s house, but hey, it was still amazing!

Anyone thinking that Kirby is dead, she isn’t, 1. She was still moving when they stopped showing her. 2. Lucy Hale had previously stated that she was supposed to play Kirby, and she would’ve went to the next one. and 3. Have you the Kirby Reed facebook page, she says she’s still alive, and it’s an official page.

I’m very happy these never came to fruition. Love our Gale, but she’s just not a mommy. As for Sid getting attacked in the first scene, that would take away from the suspense of the rest of the film. The one thing that I admit really worked in Scream 4 was that I was never sure if or when Sid was going to die. Every time she went head-to-head with Ghostface, I got some butterflies in my stomach.

Actually, Kirby was just left for dead. She was never mentioned dead or alive from that point on. She is visibly seen squirming as Charlie walks away. It could be like Halloween 2 where Loomis is thought to be dead, but is still alive. So when Scream 5 is made, Kirby could still be in it. There is still that glimmer of hope for her!

I totally agree about Kirby! LOVED HER! If Scream 5 does happen I hope she will return. I would have not changed a thing with Gale she was hilarious and how awesome was the barn scene when she is attacked?! Loved it. Wish Kate and Sid had more bonding time and at least mention Neil Presscott.

Neil died?! But, anyway, I’m actually happy that they didn’t kill of Sid, I was about to jump through the screen and kill Jill myself when I thought they’d killed her.
I am a true Sidney Prescott groupie, as another fan said, if they kill Sid, it’d better be a murder to remember. Not a garbage Jamie Lee Curtis, opening scene kill – it’d better be some sick and twisted shit. But, the anger was definitely there and you could tell that Ghostface was pissed (Jill), but when it came to Charlie, the only person he really had anything against was Kirby. When he walked off he kinda’ pulled his hair and had a whole Norman Bates thing going, I wish they would’ve played more into him being psychotic. And as much as I hate to say it, I wish they would’ve killed someone off in the main cast. That way, if they make more “Scream” films, we don’t have to wait for their demise – I don’t think I can take anymore heartbreak. This was the first time Gale got stabbed and I was ready to just DIE.
But, overall, I think if you know “Scream”, “Scream 2″, and “Scream 3″ and you watched “Scream: The Inside Story” you’ll understand what they were trying to achieve in “Scream 4″, and though it lacked a few things, I think they did a bang-up job. I would love to meet Kevin Williamson (yes, my real last name is Williamson) and just pitch a few ideas and be on set if they’re doing a “Scream 5″. I’m an up and coming director and writer and nothing would enthuse me more than to be a part of my favorite franchise. As a matter of fact, I’m about to start tweeting Wes, now. LOL I have to be a part of this.

If Scream 5 happens they could easily resurrect Kirby we never see her confirmed dead. For all we know she could be at the hospital recovering. They could say her wounds weren’t fatal she was just stabbed a few times.Then left for dead if Scream 5 happens I hope they bring Kirby back she should be the new final girl.

I was thoroughly disappointed with this movie. I remember seeing the first SCREAM in 1996, enjoyed it, loved the characters, loved the banter, loved the gilded sexual and sensuality of the characters – because that is what high school is like.

But this movie disappointed.

I just saw it. It is fresh in the mind. I have a housemate who hates horror movies and the SCREAM movies and I am the constant defender of them, especially the SCREAM trilogy. I went into SCRE4M passionately wanting to love this movie. Besides a few moments of ‘the past is the future’, I was just rocked with how bad and unimaginative this first of a supposed new trilogy was. The characters were reeked of the highest forms of banality, thus Sidney’s life and times within this movie didn’t matter because the humanity of the characters was distilled into one or two beats.

Where was the scenes where Sidney visits Tatum’s grave – her father’s final resting place, Randy’s grave, and even Mr Billy Loomis tomb? Where were the scenes that showed us this is real and this happened to real people and Stu, Billy, Tatum, and everyone else is almost exactly where we last left them – in the ground because death is final.

The past is the future and future is the past – in this world, in life – in art.

New rules means new rules – new decade means new decade. Words have meaning if. If post modernism hasn’t driven them fully into obscurity. SCRE4M missed so badly because while the flick did document the post-modern times we live in effectively within the universe of the character’s mindset ( which is good because that is where our times are especially with young people ), the movie was absent of any effective thematic device to exude albeit subtly, the ineffectiveness of a world sans a meta-narrative. In essence, while this movie tried to reach beyond the limits of horror narrative to reflect upon our culture, it was absent any ability to do so because its theme was so laced with post-modern undertones. Worldviews are not all equal – this was a ‘dramatic’ weakness in this movie.

If there are new rules one of them should have been be utter confusion and absurdity. I am confident Mr Williamson knows of Sartre. In post-modernism, everything is upside down and inside out – thus the answers the audience wants, well, they shouldn’t have gotten. The killers should have never been revealed this movie. There should have been three horrific, bloody murders – later in the movie after the infamous opening we were given with people viewing sequel frenzy stab movies. Because so many of the main characters were bland, there wasn’t any surprise who the killers were – so many were killed off it could have only been certain characters – and making Sidney’s cousin a killer was a tragic mistake. This reeked of the same kind of mistakes that were made in SCREAM 3, where back story was just ‘told’ not shown, as if Sidney’s larger world appeared only to give us killers. How screwed up can one family be?

Again, one of the key ingredients of post-modern thinking is utter confusion, the lack of a meta-narrative, thus fitting perfectly if SCREAM 4 was based solidly on WHAT WE DON’T KNOW and WHO DOESN’T DIE…Leaving us with multiple murderers on the run, utter confusion and lack of motives. This allows several interesting back stories with our new characters, tumbling into SCREAM 5 & SCREAM 6 with little, if anything, as known.

The narrative mentioned above would have enabled Sidney’s character more dramatic arch and depth – as she becomes a detective of sorts through SCREAM 5 & 6, combing a vast sea of increasing suspects, including the new generation of characters, and even seemingly old friends like Dewey and Gale…. Once this narrative paradigm is set, you can do all the breathing and humor and pop cultural references you want. The trilogy becomes new. And life is new and always should be shown as such dramatically. Such dramatic elements worked in the original SCREAM because they were combined with an active, interesting, and diverse universe of characters with various vastitudes, creating an icon representation of our contemporary times. The in-house humor, the self-references in SCREAM 4 fell flat because the universe was prosaic an dull; the answers were going to be tightly revealed to us if we stuck around.

We needed something different for this trilogy to mean anything – and! – to be what it wanted to be. The overall thematic power of post-modernism is opposite of what this movie showed. Instead of assuming nice little answers – of plausibility, of clear character motivation and the quotidian aspects of life – there is a negation of all sense and meaning, of routine. Life is absurd.

We needed less death in SCREAM 4, more heat and blood and fear – of humanity in chaos, and far fewer answers.

I love how Jill is on ALL of the posters and fliers, you just KNOW she’s the NEW Sidney Prescott, and then the bitch takes off her mask with that twisted smile underneath. God, I love that I hated Emma Roberts so much. LOL

Loved the character of Kirby, would like to have seen Kirby and Trevor go on to the next film. Maybe thats why reports from the set last summer said some of the cast were upset about rewrites(guessing now maybe thats when their characters got killed off)

When Jill is talking with Dewey at the end she mentions Kirby being dead and he didn’t correct her, when she mentioned another character being dead, he corrected her and said they might make it. Assuming from that Kirby is gone, but I still hope she comes back!

I seriously hate the fact they killed Kirby. The fact they want to even POSSIBLY do a sequel sounds silly now since they only have ONE new character that lived….Kirby would have at least made it seem more sense and they could have pulled a Randy with her….

I would’ve loved to see a 10 year old kid running from GF. It would’ve been very Halloween 4 & 5 of Scream to have that along with Neve, Courtney, and David. The rest of that mess can go though. Loved Kirby too. Every Scream has a favorite character for me. Scream is Tatum, Scream 2 is Hallie, Scream 3 is Jennifer and Scream 4 goes to Kirby.

They should have kept the original opening scene and NOT cut all the downtime scenes and crime scene shots. They should have given more screen time to Dewey doing more than driving around and they should have gotten a better actress to play Jill’s mom. So what should they do if they make a Scream5? Bring back Kirby and kill off Gale!

Kill off Gale…boo!!!! I had a theory that Gale might be the killer in Scream 4. I’m so glad that didn’t happen. Honestly, it’s these characters (and the actors) that make a Scream film. Gale cannot die…at least until the climax of Scream 6.

ok first off for everyone whos asking about niels funeral u have to think about it if that was in the movie it would have ruined everything because sid is on her book tour and thinks she is free from gohstface and when everything starts to happen its great it really gets u into the story and adding the funeral too the mix would just be HORRIBLE because u would basically have to stop all the action and susppens to frigin have it. 2 its good gale did not have a baby because that would ruin gale with a baby she would not be able to be her bitchy controlling self and be the ale we all know and love but also with that topic it could have worked out for gohstface because if gohstface captured the baby than gale and dewie would go after it and basically most likely be toased but ounce again also a stupid ida thats why killing sid off would have been a awful also and a stupid move because the ay sid is in this movie and the way she interacts with goshtface and stuff proves to everyone out there SHE IS SCREAM sidney dewey gale are SCREAM and that wont ever change also i like everyone else im hopeing kirby is alive because she also was great for thi franchise because her final scene was really emotional and thats why people got attached to this character because u get to see this hard rock punk kick ass horror moving loving girl but also gget to see her emotional and senstive side and u see her break down into tearsn which u proably (well atleast i never thought i would) see. and just like t.j williamson up there that would be cool because scream is my favorite franchise too and to be apart of it would be AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!! plus u cant just finihsh here please make 5 please but also if u do it mite be beat a killer like jilll and emma roberts did a great job with jill because heres a character u think is normal but then u get to see how sphycotic she really is and how much she wants fame and to be like sidney and its awsome

I enjoyed the film a lot but i wish there were more suspenseful scenes and i feel the movie lacked the tension that made scream and scream 2 so great. Other than that i loved it! Bring back Robbie and Kirby for scream 5!!!!!!

I think Judy will be the next main star in SCREAM 5…and…we’ll have some time travel too (just like stab 5..yeah). Judy is one of the most suspicious characters in scream 4. I never forget that SAW 4 was mentioned in the beggining of scream 4 and in this movie, the cop was revealed as the real villain.

Did they ever say Kirby died? I mean, she was rolling around on the floor when the scene ended. So maybe she’s still alive. She’s the only one that didn’t really die on camera. So maybe she’s alive and will have a roll in scream 5. Who knows. lol

That would be cool to see robbie and kirby still be alive. like everybody was saying, in her last scene u see her rolling on the floor and remember the scene when sidney, jill, and kirby were going to run out the door when u see robie and he tells them to run. i couldve sworn that he was going to be like randy and help the girls but they had them killed off. he and kirby were great characters! i loved hayden penitierre as kirby. she was funny, smart, and quick. hopefully she’s in scream 5 and hopefully robbie made it too. we’ll just have to wait till scream 5. but in my opinion i don’t think that they’re going to bring back any of the characters we are hoping for. but i liked all of the new characters like robbie, charlie, trevor, jill, olivia, and kirby. tevor reminded me of skeet ulrich who played billy from the original and robbie and charlie reminded me of stu and randy from the original. jill also reminded me of sidney and kirby reminded me barely but a little bit of tatum. do a scream 5!

Kirby is dead. She was a good character, but she’s gone. It would have been better if she and Robbie lived, but they didn’t. You guys are just getting your hopes up.But what I think really sucked was there was no Randy. There was rumors that he might be in it, and I was dissapointed to see he wasnt, but they couldnt include him in it really. The Scream 3 appearence where he was in the video was good, but they couldnt do that twice and I dont see how else they could have included him. Maybe flashbacks? That could include Tatum, Stu and Billy aswell? But really, they couldnt do it, which was dissapointing.It was stupid to kill of all the new characters except that Police women. She was annoying, I much would have prefered to see Kirby and Robbie make it. So this means Scream 5 will be all new characters again, which just doesnt seem… right. And as for the originals, Gale, i thought, was very different to what she was like in the original movies. Sidney was good, if they killed her i would just ignore that there was even a forth, and only acknowledge the first 3. As for Dewey, even though he is Sheriff now, I liked how he was abit, how do i put this, how he “Ooozed with inexperience.” Overall, the movie was nowhere near as good as the original 3, but atleast they didnt “F**k with the original.” I was defenatly hoping for something better.

@ Matt Attack
“… they should have gotten a better actress to play Jill’s mom.”

The actress they got (Mary McDonnell) is an Oscar nominee and one of the better talents working today. Just check out her role in Dances With Wolves or on TV’s Battlestar Galactic — fabulous. I was actually surprised to see her slumming it in such a nothing part. I doubt even Meryl Streep could have made much of an impression in that tiny role.

Wow scream 4 was a great opener tot the new trilogy, some people said they shouldn’t of killed kirby, but that’s the clever thing, it was tragic, it was horror and it was a great decision, in one weekend all over the globe kirby is legend, fansites, facebook pages, it was up there with randys death which is amazing since she has half the screen time. Plus they can bring her back everyone was so sure that jill was the NEW sidney that u truly never saw it comming scream 5 has so many routes to go down, dewey has an affair with dep judy, gails career is no more so she decides to kill dewey sid and judy and maybe even kirby mean while another killer is targeting kirby and her new friends and that killer could be a victims (add name here) parent neither killer knows about each other or they could do a cult of stab fanatics who start killings cus the studios stopped making stab films there could be five of them scream 5 hahaha billys dad could be the leader

Kirby died. It was part of the killers plan and no mention is made by Dewey or the reporters of anyone other then Jill surviving and Sid in critical condition. She was still moving so they could have the killer express how dying isn’t as fast and painless as it is in the movies.

in scream 5 they should make victims killed in webcam while friends watch helplessly while the victim is being butchered, and while a victim is running around they should show them get butchered by two ghostface killers since we know already its gonna be two killers

I saw SCRE4M on opening night and let me tell you it had me screaming and jumping since it started. I loved the film and the twist it threw at us. I’m with most of you that everytime Sidney was in the room w/ Ghostface I kept praying she wouldn’t get killed. When she finally got stabed I couldn’t believe it and thought to myself, that’s it this movie officialy sucks. Little did I know that she was still alive! My favorite line was “Don’t fuck with the original.” I loved the surprise at the end when the killer finally reveals ITself. Now, about the whole baby thing, I think it was a good idea and I would have loved to play their son! So if it ever does happen… Wes, Kevin give me a call! Haha. Kirby, I have a feeling she’s not dead and WILL be back for Scream 5. All in all I loved the film and everything about it. The 11year wait was worth it! -Pedro.

i agree w/ some of the people, i think they shouldn’t have killed kirby, i liked her, although that wasnt the first person they killed that pissed me off, randy was my favorite, those two should have lived.

I wish that the killers were Judy and Jill, and Kirby and Charlie survive and kill them after the stab Sidney.
I think that Judy’s motive could’ve involved her wish to be remembered because sidney doesn’t remember her and she wants to be known, as well as her wish to kill gale because she wants to be with dewey. Her motive would’ve (for once) involved ALL of the original trio rather than just sidney, and gives the kilers reason to try to kill dewey and gale, rather than just “i dont like sidney”.
Jill’s motive would’ve been the same, but the hospital scene would’ve been cut out. Kirby hould’ve popped up and killed Jill, talking about how STAB ended with the girl being “left for dead” returning and killing them, only to be wounded (but not fatally) by Judy. Judy is then killed by Charlie, and then we have multiple survivors!

Please bring Randy back if you do Scream 5. There’s so many ways you could do it.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please…
…

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